Myocardial Protective Effects of Pretreatment With Gemfibrozil on Ischemia/Reperfusion Myocardium in Rabbits

Objective To investigate the effect of pretreatment with gemfibrozil on myocardium ischemia/reperfusion injury in atherosclerotic rabbits. Methods Myocardial ischemia/reperfusion models were built through ligating the left anterior descending(LAD) of New Zealand rabbits in vivo.Twenty-four New Zealand white rabbits were randomly divided into three groups: the ischemia/reperfusion(I/R) group,the ischemia/reperfusion with gemfibrozil treatment group,and the sham group.The serum TNF-alpha levels were measured in the different experiment stages.The ultrastructure of the myocardial cells by transmission electron microscope was observed and we examined the changes in the size of myocardial infarct resulting from coronary ischemia/reperfusion. Result The serum TNF-alpha levels after myocardium ischemia/reperfusion injury significantly decreased in the gemfibrozil treatment group compared with those of the I/R group(P0.01).The ultrastructure of myocardium cell was slightly destroyed and the myocardial infarct size was significantly smaller in the gemfibrozil treatment group than the I/R group. Conclusion The long-term gemfibrozil pretreatment can lighten the severity of myocardial injury produced by coronary ischemia/reperfusion.